Every Starry Night Shines For You
by leonsalanna
Summary: Before he leaves this world, Vincent van Gogh left behind a gift for Amy Pond. Here is the story of the only three people in the universe to see his last masterpiece. Takes place immediately after the end of 5.10. Part 1 of 2.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Every Starry Night Shines For You  
>Author: leonsalanna<p>

Disclaimer: You brilliant, brilliant men of the BBC. Vincent and the Doctor was one of my favorite Season 5 episodes and I gladly cede all credit for its characters to you.

Ship: One-sided Amy/Vincent, Amy/Rory

Summary: Before he leaves this world, Vincent van Gogh left behind a gift for Amy Pond. Here is the story of the only three people in the universe to see his last masterpiece. Takes place immediately after the end of 5.10. Part 1 of 2.

Notes: Spoilers through 5.13: The Big Bang. Trigger warning for mention of suicide.

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><p>The Doctor dropped his arm from around her shoulders so Amy replaced it with her own and she just stood there, hugging herself as if from cold, as she stared at the sunflowers Vincent never really liked. And at the words: "For Amy. Vincent." But while she stood there, the Doctor had more wandering to do. At the other end of the gallery, behind an obscure wall one might not notice if they didn't look closely, he found a framed letter. Always inquisitive, he stepped close and leaned in to read it.<p>

_"Doctor. I tried to hold onto the hope that you might come back for me some day. Take me across the skies in your wonderful ship. I know it isn't to be so. I know you will be disappointed it came to this, but I think you will not be surprised. Do not get me wrong, you and she were like burning beacons in the night. But you of all people know that sometimes even the brightest light can be swallowed up by the darkness and the Silence. _

_ "The fits of madness come and go, like you saw that morning, but I know the sadness will last forever. Does she still cry? She should not be under the sadness like I am. Tomorrow, I want you to go to the window you saw nothing in. Make sure she gets it. It is my gift to her, one that she can keep with her in life as, I hope, in her heart. _

_ "As I told you that night, the things I see are wondrous. But I had never seen anything as wondrous as the two of you and no color on a palette could ever show that. To this day, I love you both. Vincent."_

The Doctor stared at the letter. Tomorrow? That would most likely be the day after he shot himself. In the church, where Vincent saw the Krafayis and the Doctor could not.

"Van Gogh left us many mysteries after his death." Mr. Black appeared at the Doctor's elbow and nodded towards the letter. "Acquaintances heard him speak occasionally of the one doctor who ever made a difference, but no one knew where he came from, how long he was with him for, or why he left. It has been assumed that this doctor had an assistant that Van Gogh fell in love with, but no one ever knew a name. Amazing how one letter could contain so many riddles."

The Doctor nodded sagely. "This note was written before his death?"

"The day he went out to the field to shoot himself," Mr. Black replied. "He says for the doctor to go somewhere 'tomorrow', which seems to say he was nearby that he would see the note in time. Yet no one heard of anyone different showing up during the two days he lay in his apartment, dying."

The Doctor thanked the man and went off to find Amy. Her fingers hovered in the air before one of Vincent's self portraits, as if she wanted to touch him. "He never did shave the beard," she said, with a sad smile.

"Actually," her companion replied. "In another museum there does hang a self-portrait of him clean-shaven. Trust me, he was better off with the beard." She laughed. The Doctor put an arm around her again and steered her slowly from the gallery, trying to not notice the tear slipping down her cheek.

"_Does she still cry?"_

Amy's face was dry by the time they reached the TARDIS, but her eyes were still sad. "Why don't you go lay down? I just have to make a quick stop and pick something up. Not very exciting. Just plain, old Earth." Amy nodded and walked off towards her room. When he figured she had reached her door (a difficult estimate to make, with the rooms always shifting around), the Doctor set the coordinates for the chapel at Auvers, the day after Vincent shot himself. He hesitated over the date, knowing that at the moment they landed, Vincent would be dying somewhere and they should not go to him.

But the Doctor landed the TARDIS where and when Vincent told him and went to pick through the chapel. He noted it had been cleaned up since they fought the Krafayis, but was still as gloomy as before. He counted over windows until he stood under the one the beast had initially been painted in and then he began to search. He sifted through the rubble, looking for a spot that might have been disturbed recently. After a long, futile search, the Doctor sat in a nearby chair and sighed. His foot was starting to be pinched by his shoe. Sometimes, he really missed his old trainers. He looked down at that foot and stopped. Slowly, he bent over and slid a discarded curtain away from its spot next to the chair. The material slithered over the floor and then, inch by inch, began to reveal a canvas. "Oh Vincent."

-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-..-

Amy awoke from her nap and stumbled into the TARDIS kitchen to fix herself some tea. She would ask the Doctor if they could find a florist and get some flowers for the table. Maybe some exotic, alien flowers from another planet. Or maybe some simple sunflowers. With English Breakfast steam warming her insides, Amy meandered into the console room, hoping the Doctor was back from his stopover and ready to go somewhere else.

She found him in one of the seats, with his shoulders hunched and looking rather dusty. "Where've you been?" she asked. "Half the antique shops in Scotland?" She sat beside him and then noticed a canvas by his feet. "Doctor?"

"He left this for you. As a gift."

Amy picked up the canvas and caught her breath. First glance at the sky made her think it was _Starry Night_, with the same swirling winds and shining lights. And the scene was of a town at the base of a hill, but this town was lit and looked alive. It was a far cry from the sad and sleepy town in his most famous painting. And up on the hill there was…a blue box? A blue box with a star sitting on top. Next to the box stood a figure, turned away from the viewer (or was it the painter?) Her long red hair blew out from the hill, curling with the spirals of wind and light above until red became just another color of the night sky.

"Oh Vincent…" she said, as soon as she could speak, unknowingly echoing the Doctor's words.

"Oh no you don't," the Doctor said, snatching the canvas out of her hands. The tear fell harmlessly on Amy's hand. The Doctor took another look at it and said, "The 23rd century, when you lot rediscover art, are masters of preserving paintings. We'll take a visit there, see if we can get this protected."

Amy didn't move, but craned her neck to see the painting better. "Do you- should I give this to the museum or something? It's Vincent van Gogh, I shouldn't keep it."

Before she finished speaking, the Doctor was shaking his hand. "Oh Amy Pond. He wanted you to have this. Because he knew you'll know your name is on a painting in the museum, but he wanted you to have something that you could look at whenever you wanted."

Amy slowly took the canvas from the Doctor's hand and ran her fingers over the edge of it. "Thank you, Vincent." She looked up at the Doctor. "Think we can hang it in my room? Somewhere it won't get knocked down when you take a wrong turn?"

"Hey!" he protested, hair flopping as he shook his head. "I pilot this just fine!"

"Except for the times when you miss your mark by two or fourteen years, yeah?"

In the end, the painting was hung on Amy's wall next to her bed. As she and her Raggedy Doctor journeyed on, the sting faded and she was left with a small smile when she looked at her painting.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Every Starry Night Shines For You  
>Author: leonsalanna<p>

Disclaimer: You brilliant, brilliant men of the BBC. Vincent and the Doctor was one of my favorite Season 5 episodes and I gladly cede all credit for its characters to you.

Ship: One-sided Amy/Vincent, Amy/Rory

Summary: Before he left this world, Vincent van Gogh left behind a gift for Amy Pond. Here is the story of the only three people in the universe to see his last masterpiece.

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><p>The morning after the happy couple said hello to the TARDIS and goodbye to Earth, Rory woke up and turned to his wife. 'I'm the luckiest guy in the universe,' he thought as he traced his fingers down Amy's side. With a somewhat tumultuous wedding day—and a rather wild wedding night—behind him, Rory felt he could pilot the TARDIS and save entire galaxies single-handedly. 'Mrs. Amy Williams.' After so long, she finally belonged to him. Then he thought about what the Doctor had said at their wedding. 'Or maybe I'm just Mr. Rory Pond.' Truth be told, Amy <em>had<em> always owned him. Right from the first time she knocked him down and made him play the Raggedy Doctor. He smoothed a hand down Amy's back and when she gave a small shudder, he pulled the blankets up higher over her. Rolling onto his back, he looked around the room. It was the room Amy had stayed in before and even still had some of her clothes strewn across it. He wondered if she packed her Raggedy Doctor dolls to put on the dresser. It looked almost empty without them.

Rory glanced up at the wall and noticed a painting that hadn't been there before. It almost looked like a van Gogh. But like none that he had ever seen in a museum or read about in a book, which was surprising. He slid out of bed, careful to not disturb his wife (!) and walked over to the wall. It looked like _Starry Night_, but wasn't quite it. After a few moments, Rory noticed the blue box on the hill. Then he noticed the red in the sky was hair, the same hair spilling across the back of the woman in the bed beside him. "Van Gogh?" he asked aloud.

With another look at Amy, Rory pulled on some clothes from his suitcase and wandered into the hall. "Ah, Rory!" The Doctor was walking down the hallway towards him. "I'm surprised you're up this early. Ready for your honeymoon? I know a great spot—"

"The library, Doctor. Where is it?"

"Ah. Um…I believe you'll find it down the hallway, left at the banana tree, and then it's the round door with the knob in the center. Everything alright?"

"Yeah, just wanted to look something up real quick." Rory then turned and continued down the hall to follow the Doctor's directions. He entered the room and was quietly overwhelmed. Shelves lined an aisle and the aisle…didn't seem to end. Feeling rather silly, Rory called out "I'm looking for books on van Gogh?" Nothing happened. Feeling even more foolish for talking out loud to an empty room, Rory ducked his head and went to look at what books were in the first shelf. Rory squinted at the titles and then stepped back. After blinking a few times, he stepped forward and took a book down. _19__th__ Century Earth Artists_.

He put that one back and took down one on van Gogh. He flipped through for a time, looking for the painting he saw on the wall, but his eyes caught instead on a painting of sunflowers in a jar. "For Amy. Vincent." Rory closed his eyes and didn't feel quite as invincible as he had when he awoke.

"Skip to the part about his suicide note." Rory spun around and found the Doctor sitting in a leather armchair in the corner. He certainly hadn't heard him come in.

"There was no suicide note; he never left one."

"Are you certain about that?"

Rory began flipping towards the end of the book and the Doctor continued talking. "You know, when we left him, Vincent offered to have dozens of children with Amy. She told him she wasn't the marrying type." Rory looked up sharply. "Read the note."

Rory looked down and found that the page he was on indeed had a suicide note for Vincent van Gogh. He read it and read it again and then looked up at the Doctor, confused. Without waiting for a question, the Doctor said, "We were walking down to a church Vincent was going to paint, with a Krafayis inside. He had had one of his fits of depression that morning and we could hardly get him up. Eventually, he shook it off and he was talking about them on the way there. About the madness and the sadness he feels every day. He told Amy he could see the sadness and loneliness in her too. She said she didn't know what he meant; she didn't feel either of those things. He then asked why she was crying. She couldn't tell him; she didn't even know she had been crying." Rory slowly closed the book and put it back on the shelf. "A mad painter fell in love with Amelia Pond and she couldn't return it because she loved someone else, someone she didn't even know had existed. Later that year, he killed himself and left behind one last painting, the existence of which no historian knows."

Rory said slowly, "I could tell he loved her, just from the painting. I've loved her for over 2000 years so I know the feeling. I might have wondered…since she didn't remember me then…"

"Her heart remembered you the whole time, even if her brain did not. So that must have been love indeed."

Rory leaned against the bookshelf and stared at the floor for a short time. Finally he looked back up at the Doctor. "Thank you for telling me this."

The Doctor brushed off the thanks and said instead, "Anyway, what are you doing here? This is your first day as Mr. Pond, shouldn't you be with the Missus? Oh go on, I'll even fix you two tea and breakfast."

Rory sniggered. "Now that is something I'd like to see."

"Oi!" The Doctor said, offended. "I've had to cook for myself once or twice over the 907 years I've been alive."

"Hah! I've got you beat now. 2021, I believe?" Rory stepped back into the hallway and went to find his and Amy's room as the Doctor spluttered behind him.

He opened the door and slid into the room, closing the door with a soft _snick_ behind him. As he slid into bed beside Amy, she murmured sleepily and turned on her side, toward him. She slowly opened her eyes and smiled at her husband. "Hey, you. You're up early. And already dressed?"

Rory chuckled. "You should probably join me in having clothes on; the Doctor should be bringing breakfast soon and I'd rather he not have the opportunity to study the human anatomy."

Amy giggled and rolled on top of him, still under the blankets. "He's cooking? God help us, he'll burn down the TARDIS."

A voice called from somewhere outside the door, "I heard that! And I _can_ cook, why does no one believe me?"

Amy called back, "And absolutely no fish or custard!" Still hearing the Doctor grumbling, the couple laughed. "I almost feel sorry for the times I made you eat that," she said to Rory. "Amazing how I could have spent all those years bossing you around and never realized how much I loved you."

Rory pressed his face to her neck, feeling the soft skin under his lips. 'Luckiest guy in the universe.'

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><p>Thanks for the love, everyone. This was just a little brainchild born out of watching the span of Season 5 in one week. I hope you enjoyed it, praise or criticism is welcomed.<p> 


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